Hell Is Above Us: The Epic Race to the Top of Fumu, the World's Tallest Mountain, Jonathan Bloom [best ebook reader TXT] 📗

After a quick meal, the man-children would continue on even after that, hiking in the night all the way through the cave and back to their prams.

Mano did not turn to leave the area of the boulder even though everyone else had begun down climbing. He was staring up at Fumu’s peak which lay above the cliffs. Hoyt asked him what he was waiting for. “Milk” was Mano’s response. “We do this journey over and over and we know rejection of our gift awaits us every time. But we do it anyway, to show our infinite love. And maybe, just maybe, one day, she will surprise us with a geyser of lactation, sating the world with pale nurturance.” He let out a sigh. “Not this time I suppose. Sergei, stop touching yourself!” One of the man-children who had been groping himself behind a boulder skulked down the slope. “Kids” Mano grumbled.

Back at camp, they ate dinner in the cold, clear night. Because they would not down climb the scree, this would be their last meal at the base. Come four in the morning, they would awake and begin going up.

The team fed Mano and the other man-children, filling them deeply with eggs and rashers of bacon so the return trip under the Qila Pass would not be too draining. Hoyt still did not like these “bent primitives and their pagan deity,” but they were God’s creatures and could not be sent off tired and starving. Before striking out across the moraine in the dark, Mano put his arm around Hoyt and took him aside. He then asked Hoyt to reconsider the plan to climb Fumu. He did not need to do this, he said. There were other ways to conquer the world, like for instance planting your seed. Mano cited Hoyt’s favorite book. Deuteronomy: “Be blessed in the fruit of your fields, and in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your body.” Nowhere, Mano pointed out, does it say “be fruitful in your conquests.” Stay at home, Mano said, and have more children. Walk away from his god, Fumu, and be at peace.

Hoyt did not even consider these words but instead asked how Mano knew The Bible. Mano explained that he picked up bits and pieces from other wayward travelers who had tried to convert them. In an interview a few years after the Fumu expedition, Mano recalled:

“I pointed out to Hoyt that the Jacob and Isaac story seemed wrong to me. Shouldn’t the ‘right’ answer have been ‘Sorry God, I want to do your bidding, but I love this child and cannot bring harm to him.’ That seems to be the moral response, more so than ‘Okay! I’ll kill him! Now where’s my sharpest knife?’ Also, can you imagine how uncomfortable things were between father and son after Yahweh said Jacob didn’t have to go through with it? ‘So, son, how about those Washington Senators?’ Ha! Not a good moment in their relationship. Hoyt did not seem interested in discussing theology with me. He shook my hand and wished me luck.”

Mano finished by saying “Have more children…and I guess be a better father than Jacob.” With that, the man-children turned their backs to the Hoyt expedition. Many were whining about their exhaustion. Mano shushed them. They walked off into the darkness across the vast expanse of stones, their torches disappearing under the Qila Pass.

Hoyt turned now to Fumu, looking up at the sporadic orange explosions coming from within the clouds at the summit. Each time they flashed, the mountain underneath would light up. In those flashes, Hoyt could see the route they were to take starting the next morning: up to the right at first over the scree and Southeast Face, then a sharp turn to the left along the bottom of the Eastern Ridge, crossing Rauff’s Maw, and then a final push up into the history books.

The mountain continued to spit fire and ash in the darkness. Hoyt writes:

“I looked at my team members and said ‘Gentlemen, Hell is above us!’ No one seemed to hear me, perhaps because they were too busy cleaning up dinner and preparing themselves for sleep. At least no one responded as if they had heard. I decided to repeat myself because it seemed like a poetic sentiment worth sharing. This time I said it louder. ‘Gentlemen, Hell is above us!’ Many turned to me upon the second pronouncement but looked confused. Perhaps they did hear me this first time and could not figure out why I had repeated myself? In the end, my words had far less impact than I had hoped.”

Chapter Eleven: The Rakhiot Glacier

In the pre-dawn hours of September the first, Junk’s team consumed a hearty breakfast of beans, sardines, and coffee. So exceptionally frigid and dry was the morning many of them donned layers originally intended only for the summit. Gabardine coats were worn over wool jumpers and trousers, flannel shirts, and silk underwear. Hareskin mitts and puttees over boots protected extremities. Junk wore four pairs of socks! Sun goggles, wool hats, and scarves protected heads from cold and sun. Pitons, carabiners, ice pegs, ice axes, and ropes were placed on belts and slung over shoulders. The Sherpa also carried tents, food, sleeping bags, and other supplies. The cumulative effect of breakfast, clothing, and equipment made everyone feel like battleship anchors. And it was in this heavy state that Junk’s team began to climb Fumu.

Junk’s route up the mountain started out much like it had on Everest with the scaling of an icefall. The Rakhiot Glacier pushes its way down the northern side of the mountain, providing the only interruption in the scree ringing the bottom of Fumu. It is like the steep, stretched staircase of a Mayan temple, and it leads up to the lip of the Icy Bellows from the rocky moraine below. These “stairs” move and break away without